Unintended consequence of the 14th Amendment have allowed an elite group of non-Americans to birth their children in the United States, immigration experts say.

Called "birth tourism," wealthy pregnant women from foreign countries come to America on a temporary visa with the intention of having their child here.

The 14th Amendment says if a child is born in the United States he or she should receive a birth certificate and is therefore granted citizenship.

However, the unanswered question is does this pertain to children of illegal immigrants or children born to parents who are temporary visitors, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies.

"There has never been a Supreme Court ruling or an act of Congress or a executive order that has really cleared this up," Camarota said.

"The courts have ruled that the children of an legal immigrant, a green card holder, are automatically U.S. citizens, but temporary visitors remain a vague area."

Chino Hills officials have been dealing with the fallout from this loophole as an alleged Chinese maternity hotel is being operated out of a large house at 15250 Woodglen Drive.

City officials expect to soon file a criminal complaint against homeowner Hai Yong Wu because of a number of code enforcement violations.

Wu allegedly violated ordinances against operating what the city considers a hotel in a residential house and against altering the structure of the house without permits, City Attorney Mark Hensley said.

Residents are also upset because the alleged operation has disrupted their quiet neighborhood.

"I'm retired from teaching and over the last 15 to 20 years I was spending up to $800 a year trying to have enough books and enough learning materials for my students," said Linda Spencer, who resides near the Woodglen house.

"Now you're talking about offering a free education to kids because their parents came over, birthed them here - now they are a citizen and now those children are eligible for a free education and they're able to go to college."

The federal government maintains that "there is nothing in the law that makes it illegal for pregnant women to enter the United States," said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"However, if a pregnant woman or anyone else uses fraud or deception to obtain a visa or gain admission to the United States that would constitute a criminal act and be a matter of interest. Likewise, that would also be true if that woman conspires with others who then commit fraud on her behalf."

Chino Hills is not the only Southland city where the issue of "maternity tourism" has arisen.

The practice has also been found in San Gabriel Valley locales such as San Gabriel, Rowland Heights, Walnut, Temple City and Arcadia.

In 2011, San Gabriel city officials shut down a cluster of townhomes where officials found about one dozen Chinese nationals and 10 newborns in March of that year. The city closed off the buildings because they were judged to be unsafe for human habitation, not for any potential violations of immigration law.

"The city conducted an inspection based on a complaint," said Clayton Anderson, neighborhood improvement services manager for San Gabriel.

"We observed that there were load-bearing walls that been breached ... the properties were unsafe for human occupancy at that point."

The city's action prohibited anyone from being inside the townhomes unless they were there to repair the buildings, Anderson said.

San Gabriel officials also contacted Los Angeles County authorities to inform the infants' mothers that they could not stay in the townhomes.

"They ended up staying in a hotel in Baldwin Park," Anderson said.

In Arcadia, city officials have used zoning laws since around 2003 to shut down about five operations where women who came to the United States to give birth stayed in residences, Assistant City Manager Jason Kruckeberg said.

In those cases, the city informed the homes' operators that they were illegally operating a business in a residential area. Those operations either shut down or moved after Arcadia officials provided notice.

Kruckeberg said there have been several allegations of other such operations in the city.

Arcadia officials have asked the federal government for advice, but have not received indications that immigration authorities are very concerned about maternity tourism.

"The answer that we're getting back has been that `We're not regulating this at this time," he said.

Camarota said it is unclear how many children are born to immigrants through surveys or through the number of birth certificates issued.

Birth certificate records analysis show from 6,000 to 7,000 people born in the United States a year have foreign addresses. The problem is that that number cannot be used to accurately estimate birth tourism because typically those mothers have some ties here, and the address they provide for the birth certificate is typically that of a relative or a hotel, Camarota said.

"We're very sloppy about citizenship and sloppy about administration data of this kind, therefore, we're not able to get a good picture of it," he said.

There is nothing illegal about these parents coming to America if they are here for tourism, however, if they're here with the clear intent to have a child, they have mislead the person who stamped their passport and there does "seem to be a violation of the spirit of the immigration law," Camarota said.

"The system is so slipshod that if we issue temporary visas to millions of people, but we don't have an exit system or a check out system that would record your departure and no one knows if you over-stayed," he said.

"And the fact that you had this kid is an another example of not checking up on you in any meaningful sense to the terms of your visa."

Jerome Corsi, a conservative author and columnist who has studied the issue of birth tourism, said this practice is more deceptive than illegal.

"It certainly is taking advantage of loopholes and taking advantage of wealth, but there is nothing in the law that I'm aware of that says you can't do it. I think it's a case of once it has become public, the doctors become embarrassed, the hotels offering the programs are embarrassed when they get shut down."

Because the program is limited to a elite group of people from foreign countries - the two biggest being China and Turkey - who can afford this, it has gained the attention of Americans because it looks like selling U.S. citizenship to wealthy foreigners, Corsi said.

"You've got a speciality marketing and people taking the opportunity and the advantage they have if they have the resources to do it, that by itself limits the market," he said.

Corsi said in the modern world there is an advantage to be an U.S. citizen for economic and military strength as well as the quality of life here.

Certainly, as a U.S. citizen there is access to benefits that may not be available to non-citizens, including driver licenses, voting and being able to apply to various schools that non-citizens might find more difficult to qualify for, Corsi said.

"So wealthy people wanting this may say, `I want my son or daughter to go to Harvard (University) or a medical school,' whatever their aspiration is, so getting the child born here is like getting a ticket to those benefits in the United States," Corsi said.